Improving The Quality of Elementary Education - in developing countries and India (especially post-RTE); equal learning opportunities for the poor and marginalized; insights gained from processes in India and South Asia. All this adds up to CHANGE - and the material here is meant for those sharing the adventure...

Sunday, December 28, 2014

Myth # 3 – There is one form of knowledge and
it belongs to the ‘educated classes’

What do they
know – after all, they’re only poor people. And real knowledge is that
which is written in books and taught in universities, which of course they
don’t have access to, isn’t it?

By now I’m sure you’re well aware of the
vast variety and depth of knowledges that non-literate people bring – only it
doesn’t get the recognition it deserves and is sentenced to remain marginalized
and often die out. By not respecting the
knowledge heritage the vast majority of our students bring, we certainly deprive
them of the one strength that can be used to learn ‘school’ knowledge – but we
also lose out on the great contribution the diverse community knowledge
heritage could make to the country. (I’ve written on this elsewhere in this blog hence not
elaborating it further.)

About Me

Former Educational Quality Advisor to MHRD, Government of India; developed the Quality Framework for the implementation of the Right To Education and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, India's EFA programme. Now, Principal Coordinator - Group Ignus, which comprises of IgnusERG (consulting company), Ignus-PAHAL (non-profit) and Ignus-OUTREACH (low cost educational publishing). Work on large-scale systemic change in education, advising state and national governments in Asia, developing appropriate models for vulnerable population groups, and improving the quality of governmental as well as NGO educational programmes. This involves improved curricula, textbooks, teacher training and capacity building at various levels. Also reaching out to teachers and grassroots functionaries making an effort to bring about improvement wherever they are, in whichever way they can.